Civitas Flash Poll: Dollar Cruising to Re-Election in HD 36

Raleigh, N.C. – Incumbent Republican State Representative Nelson Dollar begins his re-election campaign with a commanding 22-point lead over Democratic challenger Robin Anderson according to a new SurveyUSA poll released today by the Civitas Institute.

According to the poll of 350 registered voters in that district, 52 percent of voters said if the election for state representative were held today, they would vote for Dollar while 30 percent said they would vote for Anderson. Eighteen percent of voters said they were undecided.

Among voters who said they were most likely to vote in 2010, Dollar’s lead expands 26 percentage points – 56 percent to 30 percent.

“Dollar’s incumbency and fairly high name identification have pushed him out to a large early lead over his unknown challenger,” said Civitas Senior Legislative Analyst Chris Hayes. “However, this is another one of those suburban swing districts that Obama carried in 2008 where voters care less about party and more about the issues in who represents them.”

In his third term in the NC House, Dollar holds a significant name identification advantage over his Republican challenger Robin Anderson. Dollar is seen favorably by 27 percent of the voters in the district while Anderson is seen favorably by only three percent.

One potential problem for Dollar could be the touting of his endorsement by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 2008 chapter, also known as the State Employees Association of North Carolina (SEANC). When asked if they were more or less likely to vote for a candidate endorsed by the state employee’s union, voters by a 3-to-1 margin said they were less likely to support that candidate.

“Dollar must be careful that his relationship with powerful labor unions does not alienate his base support,” added Hayes. “Over half of Republicans in his district reacted negatively to a labor union endorsement.”

House District 36 is rated as an R+4 district on Civitas’ North Carolina Partisan Index – an index that rates the relative partisan voting habits of individual legislative districts. For more on the NCPI, click here.

The survey of 350 registered voters was taken June 20-22 by SurveyUSA on behalf of the Civitas Institute using the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) method. It carries a margin of error of 4.9%.

This SurveyUSA poll was conducted by telephone in the voice of a professional announcer. Respondent households were selected at random, using Random Digit Dialed (RDD) sample provided by Survey Sampling, of Fairfield CT. All respondents heard the questions asked identically. Where necessary, responses were weighted according to age, gender, ethnic origin, geographical area and number of adults and number of voice telephone lines in the household, so that the sample would reflect the actual demographic proportions in the population, using most recent U.S. Census estimates. In theory, with the stated sample size, one can say with 95% certainty that the results would not vary by more than the stated margin of sampling error, in one direction or the other, had the entire universe of respondents been interviewed with complete accuracy. There are other possible sources of error in all surveys that may be more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. These include refusals to be interviewed, question wording and question order, weighting by demographic control data and the manner in which respondents are filtered (such as, determining who is a likely voter). It is difficult to quantify the errors that may result from these factors. Fieldwork for this survey was done by SurveyUSA of Clifton, NJ.
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